Why Traceability Could Decide the Future of East African Food Exports
A shipment of Ugandan coffee arrives at a European port. Mind you, coffee is one of East Africa’s most important export crops, and the European Union remains a major destination market. Uganda alone exported more than 6 million 60-kg bags of coffee in 2023/24, according to the Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) Therefore, the quality is excellent. The paperwork is complete. The buyer wants the product. But there's one question the exporter can't answer with certainty: Can you prove this coffee wasn't grown on recently deforested land? Increasingly, that's enough to delay or even lose the sale. That's the new reality facing agricultural exporters as the European Union's Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) raises the bar for market access. For East African producers of coffee, tea, cocoa, avocados and other high-value crops, success is no longer measured solely by what they grow. It's also measured by what they can prove. Traceability has quietly shift...
